After the red-tagging of Maginhawa Community Pantry proponent, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte urged the organizers of such activity to coordinate with their respective barangays for assistance and observance of minimum health protocols amid COVID-19.

In an interview with ANC on Wednesday, Belmonte said the barangay can provide the needs of the organizers to ensure the security and order in the pantry.

“I would just say please coordinate with your barangay because this is really a community activity,” Mayor Belmonte said.

“The barangay can provide you things that you will need, that you might have difficulty in providing for yourselves,” she added.

Mayor Belmonte also said that the barangay may help in maintaining the security, making sure the observance of minimum health protocols, and even the food safety.

“The tanods can help, the barangay can help with that, disinfecting the area because that’s important na, kailangan ma-disinfect pagkatapos na mamigay tayo ng ayuda o tulong sa mga tao. Siguro we can add somebody look at the food as well kasi we have to take care… food safety (The tanods can help, the barangay can help with that, disinfecting the area because that’s already important, it needs to be disinfected after we give help or assistance to the people. Maybe we can add somebody look at the food as well for food safety),” she said.

“Mga maliliit lang na bagay na ganyan that a kind hearted individual might overlook, so kailangan siguro talaga ng coordination lang with the barangay (Just small things like that a kind hearted individual might overlook, so maybe it just really need coordination with the barangay),” she added. 

The city mayor also said that the government must stay away from the community pantries.

“This is something that grew and sprung out of community love, so dapat as much as possible the government must stay away from this, must be isolated from this para the people can just go and do their good acts and the government will just come in when asked,” she said.